Bad Penny Exclusive: The New Loud Pick Their Favorite David Lynch Films

Angelo Badalamenti. Chris Isaak. Julee Cruise. To David Lynch fans, music is as integral to films like “Blue Velvet,” “Wild at Heart” and “Twin Peaks” as Nitrous Oxide was to Frank Booth.

The deeper we get into the 21st century, the dustier those films are getting – and yet, all the while, the number of Lynch fans only seems to be growing. If you count yourself among those ranks, you probably pride yourself on telling friends, “I’m in your house,” looking for an ear in your neighbor’s lawn, or declaring in your kitchen, “This is a formica table.”

But if you think you know your Lynch, well, you’ve met your match with the New Loud. The Milwaukee electro-punk band is so obsessed that they wrote their new song, “Wrapped in Plastic,” from the point of view of the deceased Laura Palmer. Morever, singer/guitarist/producer Shane Olivo has gone so far as to name his recording studio after one of Lynch’s characters.

Olivo was kind enough to send along a list of his very favorite Lynch films, along with brief summaries and highlights of the best scenes, in his opinion:

1. “Wild at Heart”

This movie has a special place in my heart. My job is running a recording studio in Milwaukee, WI. Long ago, when I was trying to think of a name for the studio, my friend and I watched this movie and he suggested I call it Bobby Peru’s Recording Studio and have the tagline be “You listen closely, you’ll hear a deep sound coming down from Bobby Peru.” So, as a joke, I did and never looked back. The studio, which is still in my basement, has now been in business for over 12 years. It is where I record all The New Loud stuff. Other bands who have recorded at Bobby Peru’s: Red Knife Lottery, Fall Out Boy, Beatallica.

Favorite scene:

2. “Blue Velvet”

“Blue Velvet” was my introduction to Lynch. I still love the opening scene which Lynch uses as a summary to the concept of both “Blue Velvet” and the “Twin Peaks” series to for that matter – no matter how perfect things looks from the outside there is no telling what type savagery and depravity is happening underneath:

My other favorite scene in the movie is when they arrive at Ben’s house. There are so many different emotions and character motivations happening all at once from Frank’s megalomania to Ben’s zen-like calmness to Jeffery’s uneasy to Dorothy’s anxiety:

3. “Fire Walk With Me”

“Fire Walk With Me” is the prequel to the Twin Peaks series. When The New Loud plays live, we use this snippet as a sample right in the middle of “Wrapped in Plastic,” our ode to Laura Palmer. What starts out as an innocent conversation between two high school girls takes a sharp turn into the bleak as Laura Palmer becomes introspective.

I liked “Fire Walk With Me” because it was the opposite of the
“Twin Peaks” TV series. Instead of keeping all the perversion hidden underneath layers of normalcy Lynch pushed it all to the forefront.